The Toronto Atmospheric Fund, a city loan- and grant-giving agency that funds local climate-change solutions, has turned to the Web and social media to beef up its deal flow. On Nov. 3 it will launch an online challenge called ClimateSpark that aims to find the best private-sector GHG reduction projects. It’s kind of like “So You Think You Can Reduce GHGs, Toronto!” or “Climate Change Idol”. A business starts by submitting a 2-page application — that is, the elevator pitch — and ends with an event where nine finalists make their pitch in front of an expert panel that will choose the winning idea. The winner gets a $10,000 prize and the final nine get an open line to an investment funding pool of $15 million.

But here’s the most interesting part. The initial judging of applications is done by the ClimateSpark community — that is, anybody who wants to register online and contribute their own thoughts on the various business proposals that have been submitted.

“This sophisticated on-line platform is designed so the community – all of you — can provide our business proponents with comments and advice throughout the 90-day challenge.  And it’s the community that selects the winners based on a sophisticated quality assessment, not just popularity,” according to Julia Langer, executive director of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund.

If you’re interested, you can apply online by visiting the ClimateSpark Web site.  After you’ve applied, here’s what happens:

1. A diverse community of investors, entrepreneurs, business and community leaders, innovators and thinkers provides comments/advice on the business submissions and rates proposals with a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down.”  The more you participate, the more points you earn and the greater your odds of winning one of our great prizes.  Your ratings will also carry more weight if your comments are seen as valuable by the community.

2. ClimateSpark has also recruited some experts to weigh in with comments and questions.

3. Smart businesses support their entry by responding to comments, answering questions and encouraging allies to join ClimateSpark and be part of the conversation. This first ‘round’ lasts two months, providing an incentive to get ideas in early and engage with the community.

4. Through a process of weighted voting, nine finalists are selected to go forward into the final round, which starts Jan. 3, 2011.

5. The nine finalists are presented with some specific challenges and our community once again gets a chance to comment and rate their submissions, as they’ve evolved.

6. The winner is selected through a combination of rating and expert review.  The winner will be announced at the ClimateSpark Summit in February 2011 and receive TAF’s $10,000 prize.

7. All nine finalists will have a chance to pitch their ideas live to a panel of experts and investors with approximately $15 million available for investment in this space.

If you check out the “community” area you’ll notice that I’ve registered as a commenter/reviewer, as anyone can. The ClimateSpark site is currently in soft-launch mode, with the hard launch coming Nov. 3. But I encourage you to check it out, roam around and participate in this unique project.

My Clean Break column today is another reminder of the huge amounts of energy we waste as a society. I’m not just talking about “phantom loads” that represent the constant sucking of power from home electronics and appliances plugged into the walls. I’m talking about the fact that the average thermal power plant only turns 40 per cent or less of its fuel into electricity and dumps the rest in the atmosphere as heat, or how most of the energy-intensive industries we have — cement, pulp and paper, steel, etc. — let obscene amounts of heat escape unnecessarily from their processes. Or how about your typical car or truck, which is just as inefficient as a power plant and lets most of the gasoline or diesel fuel we burn escape as waste heat? Waste is all around us, and while the technologies exist to affordably recycle that waste heat into useful energy, we’re doing a crappy job of embracing them. My question is this: Why can we as a society place so much importance on recycling the glass, plastics and metals in our municipal solid waste into useful products, yet we seem completely blind to the potential to recycle so much waste heat around us? Municipal recycling programs are quite mature now, mandated and widely accepted… Could we not mandate heat recovery based on the same recycling principles?

Tom Rand, in addition to being a cleantech advisor at MaRS Discovery District, an author and a cleantech investor, has just opened the doors on a 114-bed hostel in downtown Toronto called the Planet Traveller Hotel. At one point an abandoned building, Rand and his business partner brought it back to life without turning it into an energy pig. They installed a geothermal heating and cooling system, put up solar panels, have a system for recovering heat from wastewater, and installed LED lighting throughout the building, among other things. Rand says the building surpasses LEED platinum standards, and uses 75 per cent less energy as a result.

Arnold Schwarzenegger? Proposition 23? What do they have to do with Ontario as we hunker down for another long, cold winter, you ask? Well, on November 2, California voters – along with voters in 35 other U.S. states – go to the polls to elect their governor in the U.S. mid-term elections. November 2 could be a watershed day for carbon markets, not only in California but also across the North American continent, if not around the world. Why? Because oil and gas interests in Texas are bankrolling something called Proposition 23 that will appear on the California ballot.

If approved by voters, Prop. 23 would force California to roll back its landmark 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act, also called Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32) until the state’s current 12.4 per cent unemployment rate drops to under 5.5 per cent for four consecutive quarters (something that has only happened three times in the last 40 years). This would essentially “terminate” California’s clean energy initiatives and be a major blow to one of the few bright lights in the state’s struggling economy – the growth of green jobs and the development of a low-carbon economy through the introduction of a cap-and-trade system.

Even if Prop. 23 is defeated, the future of AB 32 is still uncertain. Its ultimate fate will depend on whether a Republican or a Democrat is elected governor. (Schwarzenegger is out of the picture as he can’t run for another term.) Both the Democratic and Republican candidates have indicated they don’t support Prop. 23. The Democratic nominee has vowed to move “full speed ahead” on AB 32 and the transformation of California’s economy, assuming he is elected and Prop. 23 is rejected. The Republican candidate has indicated she would suspend all activity on AB 32 for at least a year until the economy improves.

OK, so what do the vagaries and uncertainties surrounding an election in California have to do with Ontario? Simple. Both Ontario and California are key members of the Western Climate Initiative (WCI), a collaboration of seven US states and four Canadian provinces.

WCI’s goal is to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 15 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020 through a number of initiatives, the most important of which is a cap-and-trade system. Currently, two U.S. states (California and New Mexico) and three Canadian provinces (Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia) have passed the necessary enabling legislation required for the development of a cap-and-trade program. But, while Ontario has its enabling legislation in place (see Pricing Carbon: Can a Cap-and-Trade System Deliver the Tonnes from the ECO’s latest Annual Report) it has yet to publicly announce the specific design elements of its cap-and-trade program. It must do this through public consultation and the posting of its final decision on the Environmental Registry.

Losing California would be a major blow to the WCI and possibly to carbon trading systems elsewhere in North America, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Accord, and quite possibly to the developing international carbon market. Why? Because as California goes, so goes the rest of the U.S., the second largest carbon emitter after China and the third-largest emitter of GHGs on a per capital basis (just behind Australia and, yes, Canada). Without California’s leadership, the development of a North American-wide effort to put a price on carbon would likely be delayed for years. Read the rest of this entry »

My Clean Break column today expresses some disappointment with the Cleantech Group’s latest list of the 100 cleantech companies likely to have the greatest impact over the next five to 10 years. Only two Canadian companies — Enerkem (see image, left, of its Edmonton waste-to-ethanol facility) and Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies — made the list, giving Canada the same status as Sweden, France, Norway and Switzerland. The United States dominated the list with 55 companies, and most of those were in California — certainly showing the bias there is toward Silicon Valley.

In all, 3,138 companies from around the world were considered, and that list was whittled down to just over 200 before the rest were thrown to an expert panel who picked the Top 100. Part of the criteria was performance and the ability to raise capital, but certainly a lot of it was just a popularity contest. On both fronts Canadian cleantech startups are at a disadvantage, because we have a more difficult time attracting capital and we do a horrible job of making ourselves known to the world.

Here’s what Nicholas Parker, executive chairman of the Cleantech Group, said when I asked him about Canada’s representation on the list. “There’s no question that U.S. companies attract more attention than those in other countries, but the fact is that while we innovate well in Canada, we’re less good at growing global companies and part of the reason for this is capital scarcity.”

I asked the same thing of Dwayne Matthews, managing director of Canada’s Clean 15 competition and consultancy. Here’s what he had to say:

I think just having two companies on this list is a direct result of not enough promotion of Canadian cleantech. In my experience many global companies that would potentially be interested in partnering with or licensing Canadian techs are not aware of the level of technology that is here. I also think that extends to end users and investors as well. Many cleantech companies here do not spend dollars on strategic marketing and instead opt for classic big trade shows to showcase their technologies. This makes it very difficult to stand out in a crowd if there are 1,500 people, a lot of distractions and no decision makers present. Lots of wasted airfare and card exchange that works if you have deep pockets and an already established brand, however if you have a small war chest you can run out of cash before you get a chance at some of the big deals.

I have also found that many Canadian companies are focused on first developing in the local space and have a very difficult time establishing strong international partner relationships to move into other markets. This may be problematic as much of the demand for cleantech here is not nearly as high as it is in the U.S. and international markets. The two firms that have made the list both have strong relationships outside of Canada.

With the exception of “Clean Break” most cleantech news here does not promote Canadian cleantech or potential opportunities. They promote large investments and Cleantech superstars like the Shai’s and Elon’s of the world. These guys are great, however we need to do better to raise our own superstars to bring eyes to our neck of the woods.

There’s no reason companies such as Morgan Solar, LED Roadway Lighting, Cavet, and Saltworks couldn’t have made the list, and who knows, maybe they were given serious consideration. But clearly, Canadian cleantech companies have to do a better job of getting themselves known. Coming up with great technologies doesn’t do anyone much good if it’s done in isolation.

That said, the choice of Enerkem and Ostara — both companies dealing with municipal solid and liquid waste — shows that one of Canada’s strengths is in the areas of waste management, waste treatment and turning waste streams into revenue-generating products.